The GP has a different point of view; there's nothing special about yours or about NYC that makes yours better. The two of you deserve each other.
Well there is something special about the higher cost places.
That thing special, is that they are more desirable by a much larger amount of people.
Otherwise prices wouldn't be so high.
So yes, the more in demand places are better to a much larger amount of people.
The quality of something and validity of people's preferences doesn't depend on popularity.
For the average human music listener, yes that is what that means. Should we dive into the relationship between "preferred" and "better"?
The preference is not individually objective, but objectively the people have spoken.
Yes, that's what I'm talking about. They are not the same things; there is nothing magical about subjective preference that makes something 'better', no matter how many people share it. If they like burritos and I like ramen, does that make burritos 'better'?
In fact, people can prefer things that are clearly 'worse', for many purposes, such as beer over hydration fluid. People can prefer things that are clearly wrong, such as disinformation.
sue me. I think food for someone without food is more important than a middle class person being able to drive a brand new car.
You can manipulate language as much as you want, I will still judge you for that opinion.
A large part of why I made the post I did is because people post shit like this on this website and expect to be protected by such judgements.
absolutely not, it's an immoral stance made by moneyed people who believe this site is a safe space.
I can tell you from my experience, whatever it is, you seem to apply it to me. You're attributing things to me that I haven't said nor have they crossed my mind, and attacking me about whatever is making your angry. I just stopped by at my favorite spot for a chat.
And you are doing it in the worst way possible where you get to be technically correct, but correct in a way that is completely irrelevant to what anyone else is saying and is also worthless.
Here is how this conversation basically went.
Other person: "I like these very common qualities about housing that many other people also like. This is proved by the fact that houses with all these qualities have much higher demand and price".
You: "Whoa dude. Have you consider that everything is relative? And that there is no way to prove that those qualities are better than other qualities?
What about a person who really likes their house to be burnt down. Or to have rats in their walls. Or to have high crime and being in constant danger. Nothing is better or worse dude!"
All of this is completely worthless commentary. Yes, it is technically true that I cannot use math or science to prove that certain qualities about a house are better or worse.
But that doesn't matter. Because we live in the real world and it is perfectly ok to generalize preferences without getting into the fact that I cannot prove to the universe that some qualities are better than others.
Instead, we can just generalize things based on obvious and common preferences.
> Other person: "I like these very common qualities about housing that many other people also like. This is proved by the fact that houses with all these qualities have much higher demand and price".
That's backwards. The other commenter was saying their home was less expensive and larger than what was in NYC, and therefore superior.
> we can just generalize things based on obvious and common preferences
We can't truly say something is better or worse without some scale on which to measure it. Is a Macbook or cloud Linux instance better? It depends on what we want to do with it - graphic design? Macbook. Host some files publicly? The Linux instance. In other cases it depends on the user - a veteran Linux sysop may use their favorite OS for more things, an Apple guru will prefer theirs.
For some things almost everyone shares the same scale and generalizations are accurate. We could generalize that people prefer running water, heat (as needed), roofs that don't leak, larger spaces (to some limit), lower costs, etc.
But for other things people have different scales and then generalization is false. In this case, preferences for location vary widely; some want NYC because on their scales, it scores really high; some want quiet suburbs, based on their scales; some want rural or small town, warm climate or four seasons, etc. The other commenter seemed to assert that their scales/preferences were universal, and I disagree.
IMHO the best part of human interaction is learning about people and points of view I don't already know - I learn infinitely more than hearing myself talk or by framing their points of view in my perspective; that limits what they say to what I already know, like a someone insisting mathematics be described only in English words they already know - they need to learn new words and use some actual math, or they are limiting themselves. The other commenter seemed maybe to think it was a fight (I don't want to speak for them), so we didn't get far.
> you are playing a word game that ignores anything that actually matters
It seems like you're saying that the other person's ideas are games, and yours are the only ones that actually matter. If you notice I'm not addressing your ideas, you might be right, but not because I'm playing games - I actually have different ideas. My ideas aren't measured by how much they agree with yours - I use a different scale in that case.
Those are the very best chances to learn in life, IME - an opportunity to open territory I didn't even know existed 5 minutes before. If I am curious and interested (and I genuinely am), I find that almost everyone has very interesting, valuable things to say. You too.
I think I'm signing off, as this thread isn't yielding much of that sort.
What you're doing is called post-hoc rationalization. You took issue with the idea of me telling people to move if they can't afford a house and tried to back into all sorts of reasons why that's not possible and tripped over the philosophy of nihilism in your haste.
Ok and it is less expensive because it doesn't have other qualities that are in demand by other people in the market.
And someone coming along and saying "well everything is relative! " Is a worthless comment.
It is worthless because it is perfectly fine to talk about common qualities that are in demand by the market.
> without some scale on which to measure it
The scale that everyone is obviously talking about is market demand.
It is ok to talk about market demand and commonly demand qualities.
> the best part of human interaction is learning about people and points of view I don't already know
Ok and this has nothing to do with the completely objective measurement of looking at market demand.
It is an irrelevant point that does nothing but distract from what everyone else is talking about.
Apparently I'm angry that other people spend a lot more than me to live in a nice neighborhood in a nice house? rawr, why is my life so much better than the people in NYC!?!?!?
When it's all done I'm still going to believe food is more important than a brand new car. I'm comfortable knowing things are true.
Personally, if you're not a coward you'll proclaim here and now that a brand new car is as important as food. After all, this stuff isn't knowable.
Of course not, you know how heinous that position is, but it's the direct result of what you're arguing here, that we can't make judgements like that.
instead of reading my posts as angry, read them as a complete and utter dismissal of your argument. It has no merit and it's easy to see because you won't make the proclamation that's the obvious result of your stance.
Your argument is just nihilism in a funny dress.
A poor person is _forced_ to strip down to the bare essentials. Middle class _should_ do the same but they have enough money that they can afford the delusion until they can't (lifestyle inflation) due to losing a job, unforeseen expenses (medical bills, for example). The wealthy can do whatever the hell they want because the unforeseen expenses and job loss are a blip to them rather than an existential crisis the way it is for the middle class and poor.
IOW, just because someone is not willing to forego something does not imply it's an essential, it implies they have a preference they won't compromise on. That may or may not be a good decision, but people make poor decisions all the time.
I drive a 2004 corolla, early in 2023 I decided I needed a minivan and purchased a 2007 Honda Odyssey and then paid to have it fixed up. The GPU in my gaming machine was literally more expensive than the initial purchase of that Odyssey.
I'm a tech person and a gamer, I was not willing to compromise on the GPU but at no point was I ever under the delusion that made it an essential. it's like sneaking that candy that you know you probably shouldn't eat, it's a guilty pleasure.
On the flip side, if someone tells me they can't leave NYC because of family, I absolutely get it.
When discussing demand and pricing, preferences are the only thing that matter.
By definition the thing that is the most popular is the thing that is the most in demand and therefore has the most money trying to purchase that good.
This is important and relevant to the discussion of housing, because it tells us how to satisfy the most people's preferences.
Therefore my statement is true and you didn't agree with me when I said: 'Well there is something special about the higher cost places.
That thing special, is that they are more desirable by a much larger amount of people.'.
This statement is still true.
That's a very bold statement and a total oversimplification. Like the rest of your comment too IMHO. Do you think people in the countriside don't have "social loving desires"? I know lot of people living on the countryside and friendship is much more better than in an anonymous city (IMHO).
I live in a city, you can have all of those things here. In fact, we have an entire stretch down the side of a river that has restaurants and other things down the side of it. The housing in that area is some of the most expensive but still doesn't touch NYC.
One way of thinking about this is that everyone in NYC is wrong. Another way of thinking about this is that NYC might have more of those things and then some. Does your city have a dozen museums, dozens of museums, or hundreds of museums? Does your city have a 24/365 public transit system? Bodega cats? Offices of all of the top companies worldwide? Something equivalent to the high line? Broadway? If not, why not? Some places have some of these things. How many places have all of them?
apply whatever the hell you want to rationalize that existence, I don't personally care.
When you're done screaming about how terrible it is that you'll never own a home, come join sanity.
or don't. I don't give a shit about your rationalization.
The problem is that people who can't afford that think it is a hate crime if they can't afford to live in Brooklyn with the rest of the hipsters.
I don't think this word means what you think it means.
I looked up the average salary in NYC out of curiosity and I make well above the average there.
but I live extremely cheaply and part of that is the lessons I learned as a child. I could afford a much bigger house, much nicer cars, more toys. I choose not to.
I know people who will finish paying off a vehicle and turn it in for another one. Not essential.
Just because someone _feels_ as though something is important doesn't mean that it is. The difference between middle class and poor is that poor has to deal with reality, middle class gets to keep the delusion that things like nice cars are essential.
These people are choosing not to move. It's great that they can afford it but maybe they should stop complaining vociferously about how victimized they are for choosing to live in that area.
Good, then nothing is essential and we can stop worrying about whether something is essential or not and go back to talking about desirable.
You may try and argue some of the grey areas, but most of the things you listed are _clearly_ not essential, they're desirable by specific people, as you said.
(personally speaking, like many people I have eczema, and my wellbeing tends to be diminished by having a scraped anus)
My mother has heart issues and she has a pump that's connected to her 24/7. She has a medical condition and so has special needs. I would not call that pump an essential but it certainly is essential for her.
The context of this conversation has been _in general_, my responses were never meant to apply to those with medical conditions.
to answer your question, a bidet is a nice to have, a toilet would be an essential otherwise you're shitting in the street, as you implied about downtown SF. Because toilet here does not mean literally toilet, but someplace reserved for using the restroom. When I go to the river to fish they have an outhouse there and I absolutely use it, as do construction workers with the mobile outhouses they employ.
defecating and urinating are absolutely essential activities, how you clean yourself afterwards needs to happen but any specific way of doing it is not essential.
But doing them in a toilet is not, unless we start expanding the definition of essential to include dignity and thriving.
buuut... well you know your response is bullshit.
hey guys, dontcha know the only essentials are death and taxes! otherwise you have to admit that a brand new car driven off the lot is also an essential!
yeah, ok...
I was born and raised in a city with >2M population, and surely my needs are extremely different than someone who is accustomed to a rural life. Even small things like, sleeping in an extremely quiet rural town has been a torture for me every time I tried it. And I am sure, opposite is true for people who are used to hearing absolutely no sounds at night.
For instance… I am medically… complicated. Living somewhere rural where I’m more than 10 or 15 minutes from an ER isn’t really viable for me. Well, I mean, it would be, right up until it isn’t.
She absolutely lives near a hospital. I live in a city, just one that's LCOL. Hell, one of our hospitals is renowned for it's heart research.
City planning is hard, but it's absolutely the case that cities just do it very stupidly and poorly and myopically and to preserve the wealth of the wealthy at the expense of the everyone else. There are not any good reasons for Cambridge, MA to have a 35 foot maximum height limit, only shitty ones. It's not a hate crime, but it is both hateful and a crime against society.
I think it would do you good to work out the difference between things that make you angry and things that are unjust.
I agree with you, transportation and planning is intentionally manipulated by wealthy landlords to maintain their high rents. Absolutely. So don't live there? Don't base your self worth on how impressive the resume's of your neighbors are? Find other neighborhoods that aren't based on inherited multi-generational snobbery and artificially restricting access to education to elite morons?
You're using a specific definition of "crime" that is different than the one the people you're arguing against are using, and that makes the argument not apt.
Being shameful for causing harm is also what calling something a crime can mean.
But lets go along with your desire to get away with using your definition instead of the original way the word was used in this context. Is it really a 'grave offense against morality' for a city to democratically decide to not allow skyscrapers? What would be the consequence of not allowing skyscrapers, is it that people like BugsJustFindMe starve to death? nope. That you will be deprived of basic human needs like shelter or the right to self determination? nope. The 'grave moral harm' done to you is that you can't afford to live within walking distance to that cool bar you like to go to. How ridiculous are you going to be?
Wait until you hear about the verbs "sanction" and "dust". Words being able to have multiple common meanings is just facts.
I want to walk, not drive, out my front door, and be within 15 minutes, on foot, from entertainment and dining and friends and shopping and groceries and pharmacies and salons and cafes. And I want those things because I have social/communal living desires, not antisocial/isolated ones, and because I've lived in many different kinds of environments and seen just how much nicer it is to live in a walking city.
The problem is that many walkable cities continue to refuse to build upwards. NYC, Philadelphia, Boston...they're all vastly 2-4 story construction from 100 years ago. Paris generally goes up to 7 or 8, but has restrictions preventing much more. So they get more and more expensive. But they only get more and more expensive because they continue to be more desirable places to live despite the expense.